The broad idea of moving a simulated submarine control station to simulate submarine motion as one or more submarine trainees operate dummy submarine controls and view dummy instruments dates from World War I. A variety of later devices for moving one or more trainees, or, less frequently, an audience of appreciable size, have been developed. During and since World War II, a large variety of aircraft and spacecraft training devices were developed in which one or more trainees were subjected to various tilting and translational forces as they viewed some type of projected scene simulating travel. The immense cost of various aircraft and spacecraft readily justified immense expenditures directed toward providing as much realism as could be provided, at whatever the cost. However, such cost justification does not attend mere amusement purposes, and hence amusement devices have had to use much less realistic motion simulation, even though it has been well known that added realism adds much to audience enjoyment in entertainment simulators. One important object of the invention is to provide a simulator motion system having improved realism at a relatively modest expenditure. Many motion systems of the prior art are believed to be unduly costly because they are unduly complex, tending to over-utilize hydraulic cylinders, which, together with their hydraulic systems are quite expensive to construct and also to maintain. A more specific object of the invention is to reduce the cost of simulators by using rigid links in lieu of hydraulic cylinders to constrain system motion. Various techniques utilized in the prior art for flight simulators carrying a small passenger load, such as crew or two or three trainees, are not satisfactory for use in an entertainment simulator, where it becomes desirable to move an audience or several dozen (or more people) at one time, and a very important object of the present invention is to provide motion system apparatus suitable for use with an audiences of such a size, which may present,as an example, a payload of perhaps 10,000 lbs.
The value of most if not all audience platforms depends upon how well the system in which they are used provides a feeling of realism of movements, such as simulated vehicle travel. Some very successful prior art audience platforms which provide great realism to an audience are believed to have been very successful because the audience is small enough to be "entirely enclosed", as in an enclosure approximating the size of a small van and seating say eight persons. Persons inside such an enclosure tend to feel as if they are inside a vehicle. Movements of the enclosure, together with a motion-picture or videodisc visual display, make the persons of the audience feel as if they are moving, though they do not know how much they are moving, since they have no reference to objects outside the enclosure. A member of the audience tends to feel as if he is in a forwardly-accelerating vehicle if the enclosure is merely tilted a bit rearwardly, so that he feels pressure of the seat on his back. Being enclosed, he may have no feeling whatever that he has merely been slightly tilted. In a system accommodating an audience too large to totally enclose, persons within the audience can view surrounding structure, and hence receive cues which tend to indicate whether and how much they are moving, making it more difficult to provide as much realism to members of the audience, and tending to necessitate use of actual longitudinal acceleration and deceleration to provide adequate realism. An important object of the present invention is to provide improved audience-motion apparatus which successfully accomplishes the aforementioned desiderata.
Other objects will become apparent as the description proceeds.
These and other objects of the invention will be more fully understood from the following description of the invention, taken with reference to the following drawing.